Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Sounds of the Game...

In 1952, Foster Hewitt called the first hockey game on television. There have been a some advancements in hockey broadcasts since then ... some good, some entertaining and some very bad.

One thing that seems to be done a lot more frequently is having the players mic'ed up. Watching a clip of third line winger Matt Cooke would be pretty uneventful ... put a microphone on him and we've got some broadcasting gold.

Same is true for the stars as shown in this clip with Dany Heatley and this clip with Crosby and the Penguins.

See Malone ask for a fight in the beginning of the last clip? I've heard about this happening in the league but I've never seen it as blatant as that ... that is, until I saw this clip of a George Laraque & Raitis Ivanans fight. Laraque was even nice enough to wish Ivanans good luck for the upcoming punch-up. When I first saw this I was a bit amused. But as it sunk in, I've decided I don't like this practice one bit. Let's do a mini poll. What do you think of the Laraque vs. Ivanas clip? Embarrassing or Entertaining? You make the call ... leave a comment to place your vote.

As entertaining as it is to see players singing along to a song or joking around with their team mates you get the feeling the real sounds of the game would involve a few more f'-bombs and a lot more shouting. I want to see the mic'ed up players trash talking each other. Obviously, not very TV friendly but it would be entertaining.

I found a really good example of what I imagine would be a more realistic example of a 'sounds of the game' clip ... Brian Bellows getting an absolute mouthful from some Penguins in the 1980's:



That's what I'm talking about. When will the networks start broadcasting "R" rated hockey games?
Since this is likely the greatest hockey clip ever caught on tape we have no choice but to induct the Pittsburg Penguins into the Hall of Fame. Congratulations to the Penguins, we know they are thrilled.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

No problem. It's part of the game.

If you don't like it, wanna fight?

Anonymous said...

I think that might have been Bryan Trottier (he was the one sitting beside Kevin Stevens) that called Bellows a "tit-fucker"... classic